Fix Cards

Can you solve a problem you don't know?

Problems are always contextual. Solving any problem, however small needs an in-depth knowledge of the system. How can you help and co-create with a stranger to solve his/her problem?

During our System Design Project - 'Shhh!Sex', my fellow group mates, Rucha Joshi, Ishaan Dass, Srayana Sanyal and I sat together and brainstormed for solutions to tackle the giant problem of sex education in India. We created a repository of ideas on these post-its from some were very apparent solutions to some outright crazy ones.

One of the milestones of our project, we added structure to our chaotic thinking process. This problem-solving process was developed after various rounds of brainstorming. As we tried to categorize our ideas, we noticed a pattern, where we could broadly group them under variousgoals, methods, tools, and natures, depending on what we were trying to solve for. We created this affinity diagram along with ideation cards as tools to generate and add to our existing set of ideas.

We were dealing with the non-existence of sexuality education in India and the taboos surrounding sex. Hence, we defined our primary goal– informing the receiver about sex and sexuality; and listed down supplementary secondary goals. Then we thought of various methods that could be used to achieve our goals, and consequently determined the tools that would make these methods more effective. Finally, we listed down six different natures to help classify our ideas.

As a result of this System Design Project - 'Shhh! Sex', we came up with a deck of problem solving cards called Fix Cards.

This pack of cards is an ideation toolkit for designers and non-designers alike, to gamify ideation, solve problems and come up with solutions. The 52 cards have been divided into 4 categories - Goal, Method, Tool, and Nature. The toolkit takes into account the contextual nature of any problem. Hence the back of each card is left blank to allow users to define their own GMTN(s) while providing a general set of guidelines. Various combinations and permutations of these cards amongst a group of people would lead to different ideas.

Quick idea generation, organizing the ideas into their natural groups, information architecture, creating the idea evaluation form (to judge an idea, its challenges, its depth against its spread), the decision to leave these cards blank to enable a wide variety of change-makers to use this deck.